Givens: Confederate veteran began Lichtenstein's in 1874

The first Lichtenstein’s was in a frame building on Chaparral that later became a grocery store (upper left). The second location was in the Uehlinger Building (middle left) which later housed Montgomery Ward. The third location (bottom left, with awning) was the first Lichtenstein’s built for the purpose. The fourth location was at Chaparral and Lawrence (right) where a new building was occupied in 1941. That building is being demolished to make way for a downtown apartment complex.

CORPUS CHRISTI - I went down to closed-off Chaparral and Lawrence, to have a general look around, and watched as a front-end loader knocked holes in the wall of the Lichtenstein building, raising a cloud of white dust. The sad relic of a building was barely recognizable to what it was when it opened in December 1941. I stopped to reflect about Lichtenstein’s history and how it began so long ago.